The Coach (Apollo's Song)
Shogo wakes up to see he's in his room at the hospital and everything was a dream once again. The doctor explains how he was in a suggestive state, how his dream was basically a story being told by him, but Shogo's feelings in the dream were real. Shogo continues to be frustrated by the doctor's attempts to "trick" him, he pretends to play it off and insists he won't change. The doctor shows him patients around the hospital, showing there's people far worse than him and he truly believes Shogo can be cured. He explains that he has the feelings there, but something is blocking them and if they could give him a push in the right direction, he can be saved. Shogo asks him if he believes if there's truly good people in society, explaining his mother was good at pretending to be a good person. The doctor poses a question to him if he thinks he's a good person, which Shogo says yes to, explaining he's a doctor and helps people.The doctor tells him that during the war, he killed 5 people, one of which was just a boy, like Shogo, and he didn't feel guilty about it, even though it was wrong. He goes on to to explain how incredible what madness will drive a person to do, but as long as there's people who strive to be sane, there will be good in the world. The doctor leaves Shogo outside, in the garden. Shogo gazes upon the flowers in deep thought, until he sees a pair of butterflies mating, which he crushes them with his bare hand, though he shows strain from event. Short after, a female patient approaches him and attempts to seduce him, only to disgust Shogo. ---- Doctors come rushing to the female patient's dead body, they suspect Shogo killed her due to him escaping the hospital. (It's here we find out the doctor treating Shogo is named Enoki.) A detective explains the situation to the doctor and their suspicion, though Enoki tells them till they have solid facts, to not consider Shogo a murderer. Shogo, on the run and driven mad by the nymphomaniac, attacks a couple in Shinjuku, particularly the female of the couple. Assuming he killed her, he continues running and stopping at a hostess club where his mother works. There, he catches his breath and refreshes himself with clean clothing, at his mother's demands, who is ashamed to have him around. He asks her for money, explaining that he's on the run, having killed two people. His mother is shocked and reluctant at first, but she gives in and tells him to hurry somewhere, showing concern for him to not get the death penalty, but not wanting him near her workplace. Before he can leave, a customer comes in before hours. Shogo manages to hide, while his mother attempts to ask the customer to return later. The man is unrelenting, asking her to kiss him, this brings Shogo out of hiding and attacks the man. She tells Shogo to leave, but before he does, he asks her to kiss him. She refuses, leading Shogo to force a kiss on her. She manages to get him off her and threatens to call the police. He doesn't believe she'll call them on to her own son. His mother tells him he isn't her son and he means nothing to her. Shogo calmly apologizes and leaves the money behind. Shogo finds a fountain to think about the events that have transpired, he is spotted by the police and goes on the run again, this time on to the freeway. Managing to escape the freeway, a car with a female driver pulls up to him, telling him to get in. He asks who she is and if she came from the hospital, she introduces herself as Hiromi Watari and she wished to help him out of her own accord. Shogo hesitates and asks her to remove her sunglasses, which he then recognizes her as the goddess statue from his first dream. He starts to wonder if she is, in fact, the goddess, having the same face and knowing his name, but realizes that's silly. Hiromi tells him to rest after having exhausted himself. ---- In the mountains, Shogo is brought to a house out in the middle of no where. Hiromi explains that he's free to stay with her, but if he doesn't want to be caught by the police, to not leave the house. Waking up early, Shogo decides that may be best to leave, not fully believing Hiromi's warnings, though once he enters the clearing, he is easily spotted and cornered. Hiromi gets there just in time, claiming that Shogo is her brother and the police leave. He asks her why she covered for him, she explains that she's carrying out a study and believes he can help her. She continues on, explaining that she saw how fast he was and requires him to fetch icicles for her that's 5 miles away, but he needs to bring them before they melt. Up to the challenge, Shogo gets to work the next day, finding the task easy until returning back to the house, due the the heat of mid-day and weigh of the ice, the icicle has melted far beyond Hiromi's expectations. He goes to tell her, but sees she's bathing in a nearby lake. Frustrated that she's off relaxing, Shogo takes her clothes and hides them, leaving his in their place. Hiromi sees they've been swapped, but puts on the clothes anyway. Shogo appears and with a devilish look on his face, asking why she's wearing his clothes, demanding them back. Hiromi asks him to be reasonable and to give her clothes back, he then asks for the real reason why she brought him there. She continues to avoid answering him until he returns her clothing. Shogo decides that he tired of her playing coy and goes to take his clothing off her. Hiromi runs around the lake, easily compared to Shogo having wasted most of his energy already from his ice run. He soon collapses, gazing at the sun, saying "A sun... A blue sun.... Apollo...." Hiromi approaches him with water, she explains that she did trick him into exhausting himself and explains that her dream was to follow her father's footstep in long-distance running, but that type of event is bad for a woman's body, seeing him gave her hope of having someone to run in her place and she coached him. He asks her why she would want to coach a murderer, which she replies that she doesn't believe he's capable of murder. He warns her that he has killed two people already, but she informs him that she was there the whole time of his second "killing" and the woman he attacked was only knocked unconscious, she adds that the other person was likely already dying. Hiromi asks him to close his eyes, take his clothes off and goes to leave. Before she's out of sight, he tells her where he hid her clothing. Six hours pass and Hiromi begins to wonder of Shogo ran off in the end, to her surprise, Shogo drops two icicles in front of her and collapses from exhaustion, this leads to Hiromi officially becoming his coach. While training, Shogo asks her, since she's his coach, if she can teach him how to kiss. He twists her words to force her to teach him, saying she doesn't trust him and that's why she's avoiding it. After teaching him about the subject, she leaves. When returning home, she finds her ex-fiance, Yamabe, waiting for her. He demands an explanation from her, saying how he's been searching for her and asks why she no longer wants to get married, as well to know why there's boys clothing in her house. Hiromi explains that Shogo her student, nothing more and explains that she only had a crush on him as a famous runner and was heartbroken when she kept finding him with other women, but she never had the heart to tell her father who had set them up, having decided to run away instead, not wanting anyone to bother her. Yamabe leaves, saying he'll leave her be, but he'll have a talk with her student. Yamabe comes upon Shogo, who's training along the road. He offers to be Shogo's coach and says that Hiromi is only a woman, an amateur, and making him work too hard for someone his age. Shogo laughs off his offer, saying he doesn't like him one and he's only running because he has nothing better to do. Annoyed by Shogo's rejection and is getting too close to Hiromi, Yamabe chases Shogo down with his car and causes the boy to fall into the revine. Hiromi catches up to them, quickly climbing down to check on him, while Yamabe makes his getaway. Shogo badly injured, slowly blacks out... Category:Apollo's Song